Consciousness is something that all people should be paying greater attention to in all aspects of life, including business. Why? Because consciousness is how you experience anything and everything. It contains the models you have for the world and how you respond to what is happening in the world. It tells you how you feel about what is happening around you and inside of you.
Consciousness is everything because experience is everything.
One of the great teachers of consciousness in today’s world is Deepak Chopra. If you are not following his “Reinventing Life” newsletter on LinkedIn, you should be because it is very educational, and can help you respond to the ups and downs of your life more effectively. It is very real world and real life, but it will give you a much broader understanding of your own consciousness if you read those articles and think about what he is saying.
Chopra, in a YouTube video gave this definition of consciousness. He said: “Consciousness (awareness) is the source of all experience in every sentient being, including the body/mind of that sentient being.”
Consciousness is awareness – that is, your knowing or perception of anything you put your attention on. But what are you aware of? You are aware of that which you are experiencing. And most of what you are experiencing comes from sensory information, but it also comes from inner feelings and knowings that aren’t included in the five senses. It can even come from your deep inner connections to the universe and its infinite intelligence.
Consciousness is not the mind or thoughts per se. Mind is mental process that you use to think about things, such as labeling, categorizing, comparing, analyzing, etc. Mind is a very powerful tool, but it is about thinking not experiencing.
If you want to experience more happiness in life, or more success in business, or more abundance of money or good things, or more fulfillment, your consciousness is everything. You must bring those things you desire into your experience and that is not necessarily about physical reality. You can experience greater happiness just by choosing to be happy right here and now.
People interested in consciousness talk about “levels of consciousness”. But many people don’t know what that means. They may or may not realize that thinking continuous thoughts of how unhappy they are, or how unfair the world is (to them), is creating their level of consciousness of unhappiness or victimhood. If they understood their own power to create their experiences, they could raise their consciousness to higher levels that include things such as empowerment (instead of victimhood), joy (instead of unhappiness), creativity (instead of lack), and love (instead of fear).
People who are truly interested in success are interested in consciousness for all of those reasons. Hopefully, you already know that the true inner definition of success is about the joy and inner fulfillment you are experiencing in every day of your life.
David Hawkins, in his book called Power vs Force, defined levels of consciousness that most people know about but may not know (except perhaps unconsciously) personally within themselves. Those levels are: Shame, Guilt, Apathy, Grief, Fear, Desire, Anger, Pride, Courage, Neutrality, Willingness, Acceptance, Reason, Love, Joy, Peace, and Enlightenment. He talked specifically about levels of consciousness (awareness), not emotions. These are levels of being, or experience, that people operate at most of the time in their lives. They are listed in ascending order of consciousness. The level of consciousness of Willingness is enormously more powerful than that of Fear. The level of consciousness of Reason is enormously more powerful than Willingness. And the levels of Love, Joy, and Peace are enormously more powerful than Reason.
You can choose to raise your consciousness by expanding your awareness step by step, shifting to new and higher perspectives, learning to experience more of the inner and outer world, and learning to create from an ever greater partnership with the infinite intelligence and the interconnecteness to the quantum field and all of life.
There is much more to be said about consciousness, but my hope is that this gets you thinking about why consciousness is indeed something that you should learn more about. It can change your life in incredible ways… experiencing life more consciously is breaking the old habitual way of responding to life and instead seeing the beauty and infinite potential, feeling the amazing energy and beingness of life, discovering inner resources you were unaware of, and knowing you truly have the power to choose and create.